Hi my name is Anne Warner, and I am a therapist in Orange County. I work with couples, teens, and adults of all ages. I believe that all of us can benefit from affordable therapy that takes our healing seriously.
No matter how old you are, it’s dangerous to think that the past is not worth looking at. I’ve heard so many well-meaning people of every age say or imply that some details of their life in the past are buried for good reason: their parent’s divorce, a death in the family that no one talks about, an affair, a loss of friendship, an illness or hospital stay, suicidal thoughts, a first love, an unwanted touch, a wish that didn’t come true, etc. Inherent in our humanness is momentum forward; going back to the past doesn’t make much sense at first glance. It can feel like going backward, waking a beast that’s wonderfully asleep.
We Can’t Bear the Past Alone
Yet, why are so many people unhappy, anxious, and stuck? Avoiding pain in the past causes pain in the present. The problem is that the pain in the past is most likely under the surface, without a clear or direct link to your experience today. Why would my relationship with my kids today have anything to do with the death of my sister when I was 9? Why would my paralysis to propose have anything to with my dad’s verbal abuse as a kid? It’s probably not going to be obvious right away, and that’s what makes it hard to bear. You may believe it’s a waste of time or it will only make you upset to flip back the pages to significant pain. That is normal; we can expect waves of futility to come up close.
But we can also expect that together we’ll unlock parts of you that got buried with those stories. I believe you will come to experience life in more full color, find yourself more vibrant, and feel more awake to your life today than ever before.
Can Therapy Help Me?
We all want to move forward. It’s human. Who wouldn’t want to leave the past in the past, especially when it’s full of pain or confusion? What I’ve found is that what we leave behind doesn’t always stay quiet. It shows up in ways that can catch us off guard—feeling stuck when things should be fine, numbness that creeps in during joyful moments, relationships that feel more distant than we want, or anxiety that won’t let up no matter how hard we try to manage it.
Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do for ourselves is to turn back—gently, intentionally—and take another look at what we’ve been carrying. Not to get lost in it, but to actually find ourselves in it.
Is It Worth It?
The past holds clues. It helps make sense of why we react the way we do, why we fear the things we fear, why certain parts of us feel missing. Revisiting it isn’t about blame or dredging things up just to stir pain—it’s about honoring what’s real. If a younger part of you had to endure something too big, too fast, or too lonely, that part deserves your attention now. That part deserves company.
You don’t have to make peace with everything that’s happened in your life, but it’s possible to feel more whole in the present when the past has been seen, felt, and held with care. That’s the work of therapy—not to fix you, but to walk with you as you gather up the parts of yourself you thought you had to leave behind in order to survive.
If you’re reading this and wondering if it’s too late—too late to change, too late to heal, too late to feel joy again—I want to gently say: it’s not. Something in you brought you here. That part of you is still alive and reaching. We can start there. If you are looking for virtual or in-person counseling in Orange County, let’s connect.
